Sainsbury's reports £1bn group sales over Christmas week as sales edge up

Sales across the group reached £1bn over the Christmas week (Source: Getty)

Jasper Jolly

Sainsbury’s enjoyed a record Christmas week with over £1bn in sales across the group, with quarterly sales managing to edge up after analysts expected further contraction.

The figures

Like-for-like retail sales excluding fuel grew by 0.1 per cent over the third quarter of its trading year, and total retail sales grew by 0.8 per cent before including the impact of the sale of its pharmacy division.

Argos reported like-for-like sales up by 4.0 per cent, and total sales up 4.1 per cent. This meant group like-for-like sales grew by one per cent (excluding fuel).

30m customer transactions took place over the Christmas week, with £1bn of sales.

Shares in the supermarket jumped 4.6 per cent at the open.

Why it's interesting

Supermarkets are one of the bellwethers of the UK economy. Another strong Christmas for a UK store – after rival Morrison’s impressed yesterday – shows little sign of the slowdown many forecasters were expecting after the vote to leave the EU.

What Sainsbury’s said

Mike Coupe, group chief executive, said:

Our groceries online and convenience channels performed well, achieving over nine and six per cent sales growth respectively and at Argos we saw record levels of online participation. Online sales made up 18 per cent of total group sales in the quarter.

At Argos we delivered strong growth in the quarter, driven by the key Black Friday and Christmas trading periods. Our Argos digital stores in Sainsbury’s supermarkets are performing well, as awareness of the convenience of shopping at both Sainsbury’s and Argos under one roof grows among our customers.

The market remains very competitive and the impact of the devaluation of sterling remains uncertain.

In short

The supermarket showed little sign of a Christmas slowdown in spending, and managed to raise like-for-like sales after a decline in its first half.